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ALYSON and Clifton Cuff, of Branxholm, bought their beautiful ornamental suite from a Launceston auction house about 12 years ago and had been admiring it in their bedroom for at least 10 of those years before Mrs Cuff decided to research it.
Her research uncovered a heavily coded Quing dynasty couch, oval table and four chairs depicting scenes from the life of Emperor Kangxi, who ruled China from 1661 to 1722.
``When we saw it, we just had to have it _ something about it looked Chinese and we own the first Chinese property in the North-East, originally owned by Ah Moy, who had the area's first shop,'' an excited Mrs Cuff said.
``The table is actually an extra-terrestrial atlas showing various planet cycles as well as the north and south nodes of the moon.
``The cryptographs on the couch also show the beginning of the Quing dynasty in 1636, and the end of the Ming dynasty in April 1644.
``I went through thousands of websites and other sources and found the research absolutely fascinating _ it's really exciting, it's so beautiful and encoded with so many different types of code that I didn't know existed.
``Secret organisations used a deer with spots on its back and however many spots there are relates to the information _ each of the tiny little deer has a different message.
``There are also some carved branches and stems and these are ancient Chinese maths and show different dates _ it's a bloody great book you can sit on.''
Mrs Cuff said that she was thinking about compiling a book with all the knowledge she had gleaned through her research.